
Real estate operations in Uruguay’s hottest resort and leisure farms’ area totalled 2.55 billion US dollars in the twelve months to April 2011, equivalent to daily deals involving 7 million USD.

In a ranking of the busiest port terminals in Latin America & Caribbean, elaborated in a work of Infrastructure Services Unit of ECLAC, Port of Rio Grande (RS) lost position for the Port of Montevideo, Uruguay. So they were, respectively, the 21st and 19th positions from the list.

The president of Argentina’s Plaza de Mayo Grandmothers Estela de Carlotto will be honoured as “illustrious citizen” of Mercosur during the group’s coming summit to be celebrated in Asuncion, Paraguay at the end of June, reported the Argentine Foreign Affairs ministry.

The apparent impasse in the European Union/Mercosur trade talks was addressed by the Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo at a meeting on Tuesday with Members of the European Parliament and the EU delegation to Mercosur negotiations.

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff's international affairs advisor Marco Aurélio García lowered the tone of the trade conflict with Argentina and said that the relationship between both countries is fine despite the trade barriers that Brazil imposed on the import of Argentine cars.

India will be launching negotiations for a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement (CECA) with Mercosur although it will first “expedite” talks for a preferential trade agreement with the South African Customs Union (SACU).

The outcome of a two-day European and Latin America lawmakers’ meeting in Uruguay was considered very positive and a strong message to forward negotiations on the sensitive EU/Mercosur trade and cooperation agreement.

Uruguay’s sound economic and stable political environment were underlined by the country’s Deputy Minister for Public Works and Transport during a high level business forum to attract investors to Latin American which was held in the capital of South Korea, Seoul.

Current trade negotiations between the European Union and Mercosur dominated the opening speeches at of Eurolat (Europe/Latin America Parliaments) Fifth Plenary Session which is taking place in Montevideo.

The following piece by Jude Webber writing for the Financial Times explains the different approach by the two neighboring countries to the windfall earnings of the commodities boom.